The great thing about Mister Aaron was that he was not only super nice, but he was also a super good pay-attention-er. (Was there a real word for that? She didn’t think so, but even if there was, ‘pay-attention-er’ sounded much more interesting, so whatever.) Sometimes he walked around their desks and offered help and other times he just sat down somewhere with a book, like he had been doing in class today. This wasn’t outstandingly different than how the other professors acted, but Marley was pretty sure that a lot of the other professors weren’t paying much attention to the students.

Like, Professor Boot normally didn’t remember the rules of their homework assignments or the homework at all despite having assigned it the day or week before (which was in everyone’s benefit, really, since then she didn’t have to do as much work and Professor Boot didn’t have to waste time marking when instead he could be ranting more about the Sasquatch Squabbles), and Mister Rob obviously cared about potions but also made a lot of jokes, mostly at the students’ expense (which meant that he was paying attention to them but it wasn’t the same at all), and Professor Eva seemed better but also split the students into groups a lot and made them work together on their star-charts instead of directly helping (which sometimes was good because sometimes she was too tired for Astronomy and fell asleep standing at her microscope), and even the newest professor, the rainbowy happy woman who had taken over Defense Against the Dark Arts and whose name Marley had already forgotten because it was too early to remember, had such a relaxed talking style that she barely seemed to pay attention to herself even when she was lecturing (which was actually pretty impressive).

Mister Aaron was different from all of them, because he might be reading but you could just tell that he was also noticing a lot of stuff happening outside of his books. Today was a great example of that. Obviously he had noticed that Connor and Marley had left the classroom and then come after them, and he’d been listening well enough that even though she hadn’t been able to see him in the hall when she turned around to shout, by the time she’d pushed the door open, Mister Aaron had hurried up and was talking to her. He was so fast to help! In some ways, he reminded Marley of her dad, except her dad was the type of person not to come help fast because he thought that most problems were good for her to work through first before he stepped in. That was mostly true, in her opinion, but right now definitely not, so thank gosh for Mister Aaron.

“Oh, alright, sorry,” she agreed, obediently dropping the door and letting it swing shut again. Marley didn’t see what the big deal was. Sure, there were Things that happened in washrooms that were potentially embarrassing or awkward, but they were also all Natural Things which meant they shouldn’t be - at least according to her white grandmum. Her black grandmum would probably agree with Mister Aaron. But why should boys’ and girls’ washrooms be split up at all? What happened to people who were both-or-neithers? Did they just never have to use the washroom because they were so different from the either-ors? (She made a mental note to ask Holland about this later.)

Bouncing anxiously on her toes, Marley took a small step back so that she was sort of beside Mister Aaron and waited for Connor to say something. Anything! ...Okay, maybe not anything, because what Connor said was totally unhelpful and also not honest at all because something was clearly very wrong and he was hiding it and she didn’t know why. Unless maybe it was a Boy-Specific Thing that he didn’t want her to know about? She had no guesses as to what that could even be; there were some Girl-Specific Things that happened in washrooms, but boys? Who knew? But whatever it was, maybe now that Mister Aaron was here, he could help Connor better, and she should leave to give them even more privacy, like Mister Aaron had pointed out with the door.

Tugging at the sleeve of Mister Aaron’s robes to get his attention, she apologized again. “Sorry, Mister Aaron. Will you stay and help him? Because, like--” Here Marley started feeling a little awkward, which wasn’t because of any Things to do with washrooms but because Mister Aaron was a nice teacher and she should be able to handle adult stuff like flirting and personal crisises on her own without him being involved since, like, she was a teenager now! Oh, well. Talking even quieter, which was as much because it was a little awkward as it was because it would be more awkward if Connor overheard, she explained the whole situation in as few words as possible to get it out nice and quick. “Connor and I were flirting, like, maybe not super well ‘cause we’re just kids but still for real, and then I asked him on a date and he said that was a good idea and then ran away, and at first I thought maybe he was running out to have a date right now but then he ran in the washroom and what if he’s really sick all of a sudden? It’s nothing to be nervous about, you know.” Her own nerves showed through in that last sentence, as she caught her volume creeping louder and resumed whisper-talking again. “Anyways I guess I’ll just go now because I don’t wanna make things worse but will you please stay and make sure he’s okay? And tell me if he’s gonna, like, be even worse, please, ‘cause it would really suck if he came down with dragon pox right when we were gonna start dating.”

Marley didn’t wait for an answer, which was entirely because of course Mister Aaron would stay with Connor, he was a great teacher, and not at all because now she was sniffling a little thinking about how awfully bad everything had turned without any warning and thought she should leave before she got even more sniffly. Nope, not at all that. She managed a hasty “Bye!”, louder so that Connor could hear but also meant for Mister Aaron too, and then spun around and began speedwalking back down the hall, mentally demanding of the universe to tell her why everything had to stop being good for no reason… Er. Politely demanding. Please, universe.

Connor had barely had the opportunity to take a deep breath when he heard Marley outside the door. Why had she followed him? His eyes were wide as he looked around the bathroom contemplating the best ... more

Marley stepped back and let the door swing shut, so that was one fewer thing that Aaron had to do. She was still bouncing, clearly invested in the situation, but at the very least she was giving poor ... more